


Our Little Talks

by MarisFerasi



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Rome, Attempt at Humor, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Aziraphale is "just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" (Good Omens), Crowley is Whipped (Good Omens), Crowley is a good demon he's just lazy, Idiots in Love, Love Languages, M/M, Middle Ages, Renaissance Era, Versailles - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-30
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-01-22 14:47:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarisFerasi/pseuds/MarisFerasi
Summary: Crowley and Aziraphale speak their own little unwritten language of give-and-take. Aziraphale likes to be doted upon, likes to play the hedonist. Crowley is a demon of temptation, known for giving anyone what they want most. You want real guns in a paintball fight? Here you go. You want a dinner date to Petronius' new place? I've never eaten an oyster.This is a story through the ages (depicted on screen or not) of a demon and an angel's love language, and how sometimes your only constant can be your (hereditary) enemy.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Kudos: 18





	Our Little Talks

_Crawly looks **beautiful** in kohl. _

Aziraphale is in a pale robe, cinched at the waist, and not a particularly comfortable one either. It itches across his shoulders where the rough fabric hangs. He clutches a stack of scrolls to his chest and is staring across the market grounds at his hereditary enemy, watching as the sun-bronzed demon talks casually to a priest outside a small mud-bricked temple in a sea of sand.

In contrast to how Aziraphale is standing in the strip of sunlight now, cast by an open doorway, Crawly stands under a sheet of fabric draped for shade beside a vendor. His master, the Pharaoh's chief of staff, is of a high rank here, one that allows his slave some comforts from the overbearing sun. 

Egypt has barely begun, a loose combobulation of tribes brought together under one chief in the sun and sand a hundred-odd years ago. They've started a huge city on the Nile, agreed upon a creation myth and language, even a burial rite, and began carving tombs out of the mountains along the river to the south. Their slaves are brought in from outside, from ships caught on the Mediterranean or neighboring tribes who did not agree to the terms of creating Egypt under one ruler. The pharaoh is supreme, he leads the temple and the state. His viziers are second only to him. 

And Crawly managed to get into one of _their_ houses. As a _bed slave_, perhaps, but he can still be influential, whispering sweet nothings- barbed with malicious intent- into the fuckstruck ears of the man who owns his body.

Aziraphale scowls at the flash of his own confusing jealousy and waits until the priest leaves (with a command for Crawly to take a scrap of paper back to his master, cheekily tucked into his waistband by lissome fingers) and approaches the demon. Crawly is grimacing at the man's retreating back, betraying his disgust.

Aziraphale comes to shalt several feet away and tucks his hands in front of his belly. "Crawly." 

"_Hell-_o Aziraphale," the redhead beams, swinging his hair over one shoulder. He still wears it as long as the oldest angels, curling over sharp, bare shoulders. He's learned to keep the yellows of his eyes in line, and they are marginally more human with the small circle of gold rather than the whole orbit being stained. Aziraphale clears his throat. 

"What business do you have here, demon? Surely nothing too terrible can be done in a society that's _barely begun_?" 

"Nah, no. Not much to do yet. I just fancied an easier life for a bit, y'know? More people in one area means easier work, and if I play my cards right I can land right in the lap of luxury. Maybe literally," he grimaces a little, a frown tainting that molar-wide smile. 

"What on earth do you mean?" Aziraphale frowns, looking down the length of his acquaintance. Crawly's naked to the waist, a dark kilt wrapped around his narrow hips, framed in gold. He has thin bangles on each limb and little hoops through his nipples, giving him a servant's status, albeit from a particularly rich master. His eyes are rimmed in kohl and hair, as noted, is long and untamed but glitters a deep red in the sunlight.

He's certainly an exotic sight here.

He had been snapped up immediately in the slave markets, as soon as the auction began in fact. Aziraphale had been there that day, with his orders from his own human 'boss' to see if any of the new inventory new how to read or write and to buy them if so. He knew Crawly could do so, but had been reticent to approach the demon or make an offer on him. In his blink of hesitation, a slave master of the palace had shouldered in front of him and started running his hands all over Crawly's body, turning him this way and that as he checked for injuries or imperfections. 

Aziraphale knew he'd find none, and that Crawly'd be escorted to a bath and then a harem within minutes. 

Who knew what kind of trouble he'd cause if given access to the palace?

Apparently at least one vizier had seen past that veneer of playful mischievousness and decided a lean, attractive bed slave was more important than the issues that Crawly would likely attract. "Hell's forcing you to--" Aziraphale lets his eyes speak for him, flicking down to Crawly's waist and back, eyebrows knitting. 

The demon chuckles and shrugs. "Not forcing, angel. Sometimes it's just an easy way to get what you want. Plus, it helps _loads_ with the tempting. And my magic's getting better, watch," he snaps and waves lazily at the vendor nearby and the man starts reacting to something in the air around him, as though he was batting away a swarm of wasps no one else could see. There is nothing there, he only imagines it. "See. I just make 'em _think_ I'm fucking them--or, well, more like letting _them fuck me_, and I sit back on the settee and have a drink while they tucker themselves out on a mirage." 

"Why? I mean, i don't disagree, dear boy, but that seems like an awful lot of fuss to avoid sex." 

"Blegh. No. Not interested, ha," Crawly scoffs, dropping one shoulder in a shrug. "It's messy. And they're bloody incompetent. Can you even _imagine_ explaining being able to switch genitalia? Or if you, I dunno, accidentally miracled something in front of them? Asking for trouble, that. This way i can check off a temptation and continue about my business. Which is, I'll remind you, generally only to get drunk and cause mild annoyances."

Aziraphale frowns again. "You're not here on specific duty? Causing a war or something?" 

Crawly frowns and shakes his head. "I don't do the big stuff. Not big on war, me, or really any of the Big Seven. Maybe wrath, now and again,. Sloth, sure. Alright," he chuckles at Aziraphale's eyebrow. "Five out of seven isnt bad." 

"Well. At least you seem to be faring better than last time I saw you. Even if you _have_ allowed yourself to become a slave." 

"Oi, easy on the stigma, angel. I still do what I want. I'm right where I wanna be, see? If I wasn't, I'd wipe the vizier's memory and be gone by the time he blinked. You just keep teaching them writing or whatever the 'eaven you're on about. I'm gonna go get unbelievably pissed, have a nice rub-down, and sleep in the lap of luxury." Crawly winked and disappeared with a feathery wave of the hand, leaving the angel rolling his eyes. 

* * *

Nearly a thousand years later, he found Crawly again in Egypt, this time in Esna. 

He'd left and come back several times, and this time influenced the humans into making him a living god. 

He told Hell it was to promote paganism and to lead humanity astray. He'd even gotten a commendation when Hastur was sent to see his temple. 

Crawly had taken a seat in the pantheon as the healer snake-god Heka. 

He'd always admired their tenacity and brilliance, and had decided to stay. His immortality had caused questions, which led to simple examples of magic and healing, which led to worship. 

Crawly'd only ever wanted to live decently, and now he was living _decadently_. 

So of course Aziraphale couldnt be allowed to ignore him for long. 

The angel comes to him the same as last time, by observing from afar at first, waiting to be noticed. 

Crawly makes him work for it. 

After a month of seeing the angel peeking around doorways and down alleys nearly every day, he calls for a servant to find "a pale man dressed in light clothes, with white hair and blue eyes." He barely has to wait a day and Aziraphale is brought into his temple, standing stiffly before his throne. The humans, scandalized, prostrate themselves on the tile.

He _is_ the god Heka, after all, but that means very little to either of the immortal beings present. Aziraphale rolls his eyes and narrows his focus on the demon. 

Crawly is so _lean_, the tanned cut of his hips starkly contrasted by the dark kilt around his waist. A flashing golden circlet is around his brow, met with skinny golden bangles around a wrist and both ankles. The other wrist bears a long gauntlet that cups the narrow beam of his forearm nearly halfway up. He keeps his hair long still, perhaps against the fashion here but it suits the demon well, the rushing red spill of it over both shoulders, tracing the shadow of scapulae at the back. His little brown nipples still bear the tiny, thin golden rings from when he was a slave. Aziraphale can see the flash of his wide eyes from here, sulfurous yellow framed in thick black kohl. He can hardly look away from the sumptuous figure the demon cuts. 

_The devil is supposed to be enticing, is he not?_

Aziraphale had been Officially sent to investigate the new snake deity known as Heka and he'd known before he even arrived that any magic-performing snake on earth would be that same serpent-spined demon from the Garden. 

Yellow eyes lock on him the second the servants leave the atrium, and Aziraphale watches the hard ridge of jawbone, the shadow thrown by it, as Crawly lifts his chin to the left in a motion that says _go down that way. _

It barely takes a few minutes for the demon to join Aziraphale where he is seated, pulling at the reeds that are pushing up through the mud across the low tide wall that curtains off the stairs from the riverbank. He hands Aziraphale a goblet of wine and knocks his own back. 

The temple Crawly lives in is covered in gleaming white limestone and there are steps that lead down into the water in a covered, curtained off room for bathing. It is sumptuous, and very private. There are no visible servants, no intruding eyes from passing barges.

"They're amazing, the humans," Aziraphale murmurs, knowing Crawly can hear. He's still wary, still not exactly comfortable talking to this strange creature, but it gets easier every time they meet up.

Something in his chest loosens when Crawly is about. His existence a constant buzzing in the back of Aziraphale's mind, the static of two radio frequencies mingling, one his own and one of what he wishes he could consider an enemy. It's easy enough to ignore, but never shut off entirely. The squeal of it gets louder when they're in the same time zone, louder still at this proximity. 

Crawly doesn't seem to have such an issue being near Aziraphale. He saunters over and stands too close, watching the barges on the horizon of the Nile with unblinking eyes. Aziraphale belatedly notices his staff, tipped in gold at the base and twined with charred twin serpents at the head. He drops it onto the ground beside the angel with little care. 

Such things can be repaired. It's only a prop.

Crawly has never been rude, or untoward with Aziraphale. He's always been pleasant enough, even chatty and friendly at times. But it's hard to break away from an ingrained philosophy. He leans slightly away when Crawly crouches to sit on the steps next to him. They dip their feet in the water and breathe for a bit. 

"Oh, your kilt!" Aziraphale fusses, pointing out the damp of the tiles. He's already dusty and tinged brown, dressed as one of the commoners, unlike the local deity to his left. 

"Nah. I'll clean it when we get up. Why're they so amazing, angel?" Aziraphale stares for a second, blinks. He'd quite forgotten his train of thought. Crawly's hypnotic eyes have a way of stealing lucidity from him. He grasps at the thread now, looking away. 

"Oh." He remembers, fingers still twined around the reeds. "They needed something more substantial than parchment. Longer lasting, for future generations to learn. They grind these reeds into a pulp and then press it into papyrus. The plant material lasts longer. I didnt pass that information along." 

"I did." Crawly sighs as though it were obvious, sinking his hand between them to lean comfortably closer. He crosses his wrist-thin ankles, feet bare and studded with scales at the triangular joint, the narrow, long toes tipped in blackened nails. Aziraphale stares at them below the waterline. Shifts and stares at the ring on Crawly's middle finger between their hips.

He blinks again, frowning. "What? Why?" 

Crawly shrugs. He lets their eyes meet. "You like their stories. The things they come up with and write down." He tips a pointed chin toward the Nile, swishes his toes in the water. A flat barge slips by slowly, trailed by hungry crocodiles looking for a dead piece of cargo to snack on. The humans toss a few limp pigeons off the side and a great splash erupts, a snapping of jaws. "I _know_ you collect the scrolls when you're done translating them in the scriptorium." 

"How _on Earth_ could you--" 

"I'm a god, eh?" Crawly cocks a gracefully arched brow and laughs softly. "I have my ways. Ears and eyes all over." 

Aziraphale frowns and stares at him for a moment, lost in thought in the glow of that beatific grin. He can't remember seeing a soul around him when he rolls up the scrolls and tucks them away in a pocket dimension to store safely for later. Unless... 

"Children." 

"Yeah. Kids have always liked me. Know I'm not a threat," Crawly shrugs again. "At least someone does." He heaves a sigh and stands, untying the sash at the front of his hips. The black kilt drops and Crawly, long and lean and nude, strides into the water. At knee- deep he tosses his circlet, shaped like a snake where the ends meet, back to the puddle of fabric.

Aziraphale doesn't know what else to do, so he watches. 

It's not like he hasn't seen the demon nude before; clothing is generally optional between men in public domain. Especially in the realm of bathing. Crawly splashes water over his chest and down, swiping away sweat and sand.

"Why here? Egypt? Why not the Greeks, or the Celts? You liked _them_, I recall. All the drinking and... paganism." 

"Eh," Crawly shrugs. "The Egyptians have a larger population. More _work_ here, for one." Aziraphale frowns and looks down at the staff beside him. "By that I mean the work is far easier, here. I don't have to lift a finger. They enslave one another, go to war at the slightest provocation. And paganism comes so naturally." A sharp shoulder lifts and drops on a shrug. Crawly kicks at the water around his knees, squints back at the shore. 

"And the other?" 

"Th' what?" 

"You said 'for one thing.' So what's the other?"

"Hmm? Nah. Nothing else. Better booze, easier jobs. More people means more tempting. Tempting has always been easy. They're always looking for something they don't need. Easier numbers for downstairs from me means Hell stays off my back." Aziraphale rolls his eyes. Its makes Crawly exhale sharply with a tiny smile. 

"Only half of your shtick, _Heka_, is _magic_. So then what of the other half, when you're not turning parlour tricks?" Aziraphale picks up the staff and runs a thumb over one of the detailed serpent heads. They have tiny golden eyes embedded in the blackened wood. _Did someone make this for you, or did you really make it of two living serpents you killed?_

When Crawly doesnt answer, looks away instead, Aziraphale clears his throat. "You're healing them." 

Another long moment of silence. Crawly can't possibly claim this; he'd get in such trouble for doing _good_. Neither of them will say it aloud, just in case. 

Crocodiles have ears. 

Crawly stares into the water around his thighs and rubs his thumb against the side of his forefinger. 

"Used to be my gig, that. In the war, and all." Crawly's eyes lift up and then back down, glancing over at Aziraphale. "Couldn't give it up, I suppose. These humans, especially in the cities... plague carries, angel. I just...nudge it elsewhere if I can." 

_Who were you, before?_ Aziraphale waits, knows he won't get an answer to that. He sets down the staff and nods, knowing he won't get an answer to any of _those_ questions he has. 

"I'm sure you're thanked for it, regardless of the name you go by, demon. Now that I can file that you're doing no actual harm, I'll be on my way." 

Crawly snorts. "After you steal a few more scrolls, y'mean?"

Aziraphale pauses, smiles slightly. "Perhaps." 

"Do you remember anything?" Crawly asks suddenly, sighing into the water like he's deflating. Aziraphale stands there, dithering. 

"None of us do." He asserts this, certain in his own knowledge. 

Crawly's spine shivers, just a tiny shift of muscle down a spine studded with a few too many ribs. Aziraphale frowns, stares at the twin dimples above bronzed, too-narrow cheeks. Venisuan dimples, they'll be called. Aziraphale blinks and forces his eyes back to Crawly's jagged shoulderblades. "You _do_?" 

The demon is still and quiet for long enough that Aziraphale turns away, almost leaves. 

"I do. I remember. I think I'm the only one that _does_." 

"Perhaps you're _mis-_remembering, then. I doubt She'd have made a mistake like that. Letting one of _you_ remember when the Host _doesn't_." The angel gathers his rough smock about himself and, sparing a glance at the spotless puddle of fabric at his feet, turns away. "Thank you for what you are doing, Crawly. Don't get me sent back too soon." 

"Alright, angel. See you around." Aziraphale pointedly ignores the soft, reluctant pitch to Crawly's reply and moves away through the temple until he's back at the scriptorium. 

Thumbs trail over smooth papyrus, both fresh and old, and Aziraphale vaguely wonders _exactly_ how long Crawly's been in Egypt. That these scrolls are so old, yet he claims to have told the Egyptians how to make papyrus, trained them in it... it has to have been at least a generation. It would make sense then for Crawly to disguise himself as a deity. He could live for dynasties that way, never changing. The myth would solidify for the humans, an incarnate symbol of their worship, something for them to care for and dote upon through the ages. 

He'd known even back then, however long ago he told them about papyrus, that Aziraphale would appreciate the gesture. 

* * *

Thousands of tears later, and some eight years after they eat oysters in Rome, Caesar sets his fleet of ships on fire and sails them into the bay at Alexandria. 

Aziraphale is panicking, stuffing as many scrolls (parchment or papyrus) as he possibly can reach into a pocket dimension. Damn the consequences of this frivolous miracle, he will not stand for the destruction of something he holds dear. 

"_AZIRAPHALE_!" someone screams, a familiar voice-- _oh, it's Crowley _some part of his mind screams-- but the angel keeps scrambling in the flames. 

Crowley bursts through a wall of fire and nearly tackles Aziraphale to the ground. He stops just short of it, the fear on his face dissolving into acute rage. "What the _fuck_ are you doing?!" 

"I thought that would be obvious, demon. Is this your doing?" Aziraphale snaps back, stuffing another armful of scrolls into the slit in time-space between them. 

Crowley comes very close to knocking them out of his hand out of spite. 

"You can be so _stupid_, angel, I swear. I knew I'd find you here, though." Suddenly, Crowley just seems incredibly weary, all his bluster disappearing. He raises a hand and waves over the walls and shelves, and hundreds of scrolls disappear. The few in Aziraphale's hands blink away, and there are fists on his toga now, yanking him toward the closest window. "Get out of the fire, you idiot. I'll get the rest." 

Crowley snaps and Aziraphale is outside, falling on his arse in the dirt while the city around him is engulfed. People are running, screaming as Egyptians and Romans clash in the streets. The scent of blood and the heat of fire is overwhelming. 

After a few agonizing moments of terror, Crowley emerges from the flames, coated in a thick layer of soot. He grimaces and drags Aziraphale further from the library. Aziraphale allows himself to be hauled to the water's edge. Crowley kneels beside him in the dirt, again, except this time he's filthy and breathing hard, coughing black smoke out of his lungs. his little black glasses have disappeared. 

"Did y--"

"The ones that weren't burning are in that pocket you made. Wherever the fuck that leads." Crowley sighs heavily and lets himself sink to his arse in slow stages. He's tired, Aziraphale realizes. 

"Tha-"

"Don't. Not out loud. If anyone found out, I'd be dragged under. Who knows _who_ they'd send up." His mouth quirks at the edges then, eases the tension around the angel's shoulders a bit as Crowley forces them back into the familiar territory of playful banter. That night over oysters a few years ago had been full of it. "Woulnd't be nearly so _nice_ as me, surely." Crowley growls it through his teeth but Aziraphale simply chuckles. 

"I'd kill them all until they sent you back, you know." He can hardly believe he let that slip out into the world, but there it is, floating between them. Crowley hesitates, glances over. Aziraphale watches the slow bob of his throat working over a question. 

Crowley's always been so full of them. 

"You'd smite another demon?" 

"Of course, dear boy. _They're_ not _you_. I should like to think I've spent plenty of time learning the difference," Aziraphale exhaled, waving his arm as a seam opened up beside them. He glanced around inside and brought out a scroll, waving it in front of Crowley's face. "Not a one of them would have done this. Were you even _in_ Alexandria?" 

Crowley hums noncommittally by way of answer and takes the scroll, unfurling it carefully with his filthy, robe-wiped fingers. "Gilgamesh and Enkidu." He hums after a moment of squinting at the writing, letting the papyrus snap back. "That's a good one." Crowley drops it back in the seam and his shoulders droop. "Probably need to get out of here," he says, glancing around their little speck of quiet amid the chaos. 

"Quite. Where will you go?" 

"Nah. Ought not tell the enemy our next move, eh? Would _you_ tell _me_?" Crowley grins, offers a hand to haul the angel to his feet. Aziraphale takes it. 

"I'm going to Jerusalem next, actually. Supposed to be a war headed that way. I'm meant to protect the Temple of Solomon." 

"Well, in that case, I'm on my way to Pompeii. Scandalous little town, I'm gonna stir up some mild trouble in the bath houses. They're wildly oversexed." 

"Hmm. It _is_ Rome. A spit of it, anyway. They learnt from the best." There's a moment of silence between them, but it is not uncomfortable. 

"Share the road? You can drop me off." Crowley offers, waving a hand at the water. A small boat appears and they crawl in. Aziraphale has kept Crowley's hand, but releases it now that he's sitting in front of the demon. Crowley waves a hand behind them and the boat drives itself between wreckage of the Roman fleet across the bay toward Greece. 

After a few hours of peaceable (but very quick) travel, Crowley docks the boat outside Corinth. 

"Well. Be seeing you, I suppose." Crowley offers a hand but Aziraphale uses it to pull the demon closer, leans in and presses his mouth to Crowley's in a chaste facsimile of a contemporary gesture between friendly humans. His hot hand is closed over the curve of Crowley's skinny ribs.

Crowley freezes and then snorts derisively. "You dick." He shakes his head and glances away, yanking his hand out of the angel's grip. "Mind how you go, oh, _angel_ _on high_. Don't forget me, _down on my belly in the dirt_, eating ashes because of my wayward sins. I'll still be here, ready to pull you out from under the blade when you manage to get into trouble next." 

Aziraphale splutters, reaches out for black robes. "That's not what I--" 

"But you _did it_. You made the difference known. You always do. Personality doesnt matter when you only see black and white." Crowley gestures to himself and the angel with quick flaps of his hand and turns away fully.

Aziraphale recoils slightly from his tone, and with that, Crowley's already gone. He's swung a long leg over the side of the dinghy and slithered into the water, changing forms in a blink. Aziraphale watches the graceful arcs of his black spine as he swims away on the surface. 

* * *

Thirty-one fantastically fun years later, Crowley is frantic, rushing through the streets of Pompeii as ash coats the city. He'd started this yesterday, trying to urge folks to flee as the first tremors wracked the ground. 

He'd been grossly ignored. 

The gods weren't angry, couldn't _possibly_ be! Pompeii was flourishing. Humanity waved him away. And now they were choking on thick, burning air. 

The air got thicker. He waved and a few people disappeared to the hilltop a few miles away. A couple here, four or five there. Hell would be breathing down his neck, but this was _unbearable_. 

The air grew opaque. Folks curled up where they were, weighed down by the ash coating them, burning flesh off as it settled. In their homes and the streets alike, life came to a screeching halt for an enormous number of people.

Vesuvius coated many towns that day, none so densely populated or as important to Rome, but it was hard to focus on any more loss than what was directly in front of Crowley's full-yellow gaze. He blinked, coughing a bit and reminded himself he didnt need to breathe in this burning, cloying air. 

In a moment of panic, he'd whipped his wings out. Huge swaths of them are burning, the quills charred as he tucks them away and shepherds a handful of children away from the town. He stashes a group of humans, including the kids, in a cave on the far side of the mountain from Pompeii, far from the eyeline of the buried state, upwind from the now silenced screams. 

It reminds him of the flood. Senseless killing, culling the population. It makes the back of his tongue bitter with bile, connecting their suffering to his own. Too many angels, had to have a natural enemy. Why not make some of them Fall? 

Why not kill off a third of the population with a natural disaster? Vesuvius' ash will spread nearly the whole way around the planet. Geologists in a millennia will be able to distinguish a layer of it in the strata of rock in the Americas. 

One of the humans takes the lead, coaxes the herd of homeless toward Rome, an odd mix of upper class and the poorest Pompeii had to offer. 

God does not distinguish where genocide is called for. 

Crowley watches them struggle through the terrain for a few miles and turns away, flitting himself north to an old place with old magic and where the humans drink deep and ask the right sorts of questions. 

Aziraphale doesnt appear for a few years after all that, but when he does show up it's obvious that he'd been looking for Crowley for some time. The Norsemen invite the angel in, give him a fur and take him to Crowley's small hut where the fabric all smells steeped strong beer and the demon himself is asleep under a mountain of furs. 

Aziraphale miracles a banked fire into the hearth and sits on the edge of the bed, hands folded. Crowley stirs eventually, waking with a blink as his arm wraps around something warm that is _not_ himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> Fyi: kissing is as old as culture. The old ways of casual or platonic mouth-kissing are pretty much extinct in western culture (thanks, Catholicism).  
Same-sex mouth kissing is still done in some parts of the world who don't consider kissing to be linked to romance.  
In the ancient world, shown here in the last bit in particular, men would kiss often as a similar greeting or farewell to hand shakes today. The key difference is that the male of higher status always did the kissing part. The one he kissed is his subject or is lower-class/a slave/etc. It went similarly with same-sex fucking (the bottom had to be a lower class, or they risk the bottom being stripped of their title if they were caught/outed).  
Here, Crowley is indignant at being kissed because Aziraphale is, as always, showing himself as superior and enforcing their status difference, which chafes.


End file.
